The stone room had nothing to see, just plain walls on three sides and magicked bars on the fourth that coursed with a red light. The only fixture in the room was a crude bed made of stone and covered with straw.
There was nothing to do but to lie on the stone bed. His hands and feet were both shackled, the chains clanking with every movement. Even worse, something seemed to be suppressing his spiritual powers, and he couldn't invoke any of it. His mind was racing with anxious thoughts when he heard a sudden creaking sound and turned to see two merfolk enter.
"You!" Mo Ran growled angrily, "You lunatics! What exactly is going on? What do you think you're doing? Where are my shixiong and shidi? Where's Gouchen! …...Oi! I'm talking to you!"
But no matter how much Mo Ran yelled or cursed, the merfolk paid him no mind. They were carrying something wrapped in a piece of red fox fur, something human-shaped, which they expressionlessly set down on the stone bed.
Mo Ran snarled: "You little eels——"
"Quit yapping already." One of them finally spoke, voice filled with contempt, "You're a spiritual essence, it won't be a bad deal for you."
The other also sneered: "More like a pretty sweet deal."
Mo Ran was about to spit blood out of rage: "Just what do you want! What did you lock me up here for? And what's that on the bed?!"
"What's that on the bed?" One countered.
"The person you like, of course." The other said.
Mo Ran's fingertips went cold with shock: "...Shi Mei?"
The merfolk did not confirm or deny, only sneering: "The spring of youth is such a fleeting thing. Since the two of you are meant to be, we'll let you have this night together. When it's all done and over with, then you'll find out what the Exalted God went to such trouble for."
Tossing these words out, they left.
The room was deathly silent.
With his hands and feet restrained, Mo Ran couldn't move at all. One minute blurred into the next, with no way to tell how much time had passed. He struggled to no avail, until his wrists and ankles were raw and bloody.
Panting softly, Mo Ran turned to look at the person next to him, wrapped firmly in the fox fur from head to toe with only a long strand of ink-black hair visible. He stared at that strand of hair, heart beating erratically with both panic and arousal.
He didn't know why that creep Gouchen was doing this, but if this is what would let him realize his covetous desires with Shi Mei...
His thoughts suddenly ground to a halt, as if any more would be to profane that beautiful person.
Mo Ran stared at the ceiling, breaths heavy and stifled as if there was a weight on his chest. He had longed for this for so long, but now that the chance had come, all he felt was unease.
That initial, filthy excitement slowly faded away as a thousand thoughts raced through his mind. He gradually calmed down.
Whatever it was that Gouchen was planning, it could not be good. It'd be one thing if it was only aimed toward himself, but how could he bear it if Shi Mei got dragged into it too?
Besides, this whole situation was by someone else's design, Shi Mei hadn't agreed to anything at all. Mo Ran may be scum, but he wanted to protect, not hurt, the person he liked. He resolved that no matter what Gouchen does, he definitely won't take advantage of Shi Mei when he wakes up.
A long while passed in silence before the person beside him finally moved.
Mo Ran hurriedly turned his head that way, voice raspy: "Shi——"
The "Mei" hadn't even come out before it made a stiff U-turn on the tip of his tongue and went right back in. He swallowed, the jut of his throat bobbing before he finally managed to spit out the second half.
"Zun?"
Shizun?!?
Mo Ran's gaze, resolute and filled with chivalrous conviction only a moment ago, faltered as soon as he saw the face that was revealed from underneath the fox fur. All of his mental fortitude fell apart in an instant, the barricades in his chest that he had worked so hard to raise razed to the ground, turned into rubble amidst a barrage of cracking sounds.
All that stuff about protecting, not taking advantage, absolutely not defiling——each one was like a slap to his face, every one louder than the last.
Mo Ran's face turned pale.
He could finally say with absolute certainty that every single inhabitant of this Jincheng Lake, even and especially that Gouchen, was blind as fuck!!
To think that he liked Chu Wanning?
Ugh!
First that fox, now these merfolk, he seriously couldn't understand what made them all think that the apple of his eye was Chu Wanning. Could it be that they somehow figured out that he's slept with him before, and still wants to sleep with him even now? Ridiculous! It's not like wanting to bed someone is the same as liking that person!
Mo Ran raved on the inside, filled with self-righteous indignation, but couldn't even choke out half a word on the outside, only staring dumbly as that pair of phoenix eyes slowly opened.
...
Oh god.
He could almost hear the clunk of something in his head breaking.
A second passed, and something seemed to ignite from the wreckage inside his chest, along with a foul stench, black ashes, and a twisted kind of heat.
It was scalding hot.
As if a fire-spitting dragon was suddenly soaring through the deathly stillness of this dark night, as if scorching lava and raging flames had suddenly burst out of the silent abyss.
All of his premeditated reason and self control burned up in the roaring blaze...
This was the last thing he could've possibly anticipated.
Chu Wanning's usually piercing eyes were hazy with sleep, languid and dazed, like a bamboo forest after the rain, every leaf and sound laden with dew.
Judging by that expression, something seemed to be controlling his consciousness. He sat up slowly, the fox fur slipping off a shoulder and revealing large expanses of supple skin, for he was completely naked underneath, but his back and shoulder were covered in bruises, love bites in hues of red and blue——
How…...could this be...
Mo Ran felt like he was going crazy.
Who did this?
Who did this kind of thing to his…...his…...his Shizun?
He was Chu Wanning…...
Every bone in his body was shaking in rage, his blood screaming with hatred.
This was Chu Wanning!
Who touched this person who belonged to him!
This person was his——
Mo Ran was so overcome with hatred that he didn't even stop to consider that Chu Wanning didn't belong to him at all in this life, didn't belong to anyone. All he saw was Chu Wanning's firm, well-proportioned body, and those unfamiliar marks on that familiar body.
"Shizun!!"
His voice was low and twisted, but Chu Wanning didn't seem to hear his hoarse cry at all. He lowered his lashes, and, like a puppet on a string, leaned over Mo Ran, a hand caressing his face as their eyes locked for a moment, then he closed his eyes and leaned in, those moist lips capturing his own.
Rarely had Chu Wanning ever kissed him first; at the touch, all the fields of his heart dried up, brilliant, frantic colors exploded before his eyes as his heart beat wildly, feverishly.
Chu Wanning's body was cold, but heat flared up all the same where teeth scraped as their lips met. Mo Ran was still agonized and jealous over him having been debased by another, but couldn't resist being seduced by this familiar man, pained and aroused all at once.
Mo Ran was breathing hard when they parted. He opened his eyes only to see Chu Wanning's eyes glassy and skin flushed with desire. His blood raced, and he couldn't help wanting to reach up and stroke his face.
But he was still bound in chains, unable to move. Chu Wanning glanced at the shackles but said nothing, instead rising to his knees and moving to straddle him. Mo Ran swallowed hard, throat moving, but then he noticed, between Chu Wanning's long, shapely legs, an unmistakable stickiness sliding slowly down his thighs with the movement…...
Mo Ran saw red, his eyes snapping open as he tried to sit up in a jolt, but was pulled back by the chains, slamming heavily back down against the bed.
"Who..."
He couldn't bear it anymore, roaring like a caged beast, bereft of all reason.
"Who the fuck did this to you!!! I'll kill him! I'll kill him!!!!"
He didn't care if it was Gouchen the Exalted or the Heavenly Emperor himself, whether it was a god demon ghost or the fucking Buddha——he was Taxian-Jun! Chu Wanning was Taxian-Jun's! Even if he was trapped in this young body right now, deep in his bones he was still the Emperor of the Mortal Realm, who dared touch his——fuck Shizun, who dared touch his person? His, Mo Weiyu's, Taxian-Jun's person!!!
"Mo Ran!"
Someone seemed to be calling him.
But he was engulfed in the flames of rage, senses muddled, he seemed to hear yet also not.
"Mo Ran!!"
…...He'll just have to kill them all. Unforgivable. Where was Jiangui? Where did his spiritual powers go, why couldn't he summon Jiangui——he was really about to lose it.
Insufferable humiliation, hateful grudge——insufferable humiliation, hateful grudge!
Who dared touch Chu Wanning? In the previous life, he dug out the eyes of anyone who dared to so much as even glance at Yuheng of the Night Sky one too many times and made them swallow their own eyeballs! And then at night he would hold Chu Wanning under himself and fuck him until exhaustion, but this life——
"Mo Weiyu!!!"
Just who was it calling him, so persistent.
But that voice was really so familiar.
As if he had heard it once somewhere before...
No, that's not it.
It was as if he had heard it all the time before, everywhere, as if the owner of that voice had kept him company through the years...
"Mo Weiyu, wake up already! Have you lost your mind? What're you doing?!"
"!!!"
Mo Ran's eyes flew open.
He followed the voice to see pristine robes white as snow outside the cell, a pair of sharp eyes on an expression written with worry, brows tense and drawn together with an aura of killing intent, it was none other than Chu Wanning!
"Shizun!?" Mo Ran paled.
Then, on the bed——
He whipped his head around, and nearly got scared to death by that face mere inches from his own! This wasn't Chu Wanning at all! It was clearly a dead monster with a human body but a fox face!
The dead part wasn't an embellishment; dead, as in literally dead.
The thing pressed against him, that was passionately making out with him just a moment ago, really was a dead thing.
The fox monster's eyes were empty, its skin pallid, not a hint of life.
Mo Ran almost retched thinking about how he was just kissing that thing while entranced by some illusion, his face an interesting color: "What's happening!"
Outside the cell, Chu Wanning held a cursed talisman between two fingers. Seeing as the fox monster was no longer moving, Mo Ran guessed that he had probably used a spell to rip the talisman from the fox corpse in the nick of time.
He evoked his spiritual energy, and a stream of dark red blood bubbled forth from the talisman along with blood-curdling shrieks as the paper burned into ashes.
Chu Wanning opened his hand, the scorched ashes slowly gathering in his palm and forming into a jet-black chess piece. He stared at that chess piece, expression troubled.
"It really is Zhenlong Chess Formation..." Chu Wanning muttered, before suddenly looking up and pinning Mo Ran with his gaze, "What food does Shi Mingjing usually make for you when you're sick? Say it!"
"Huh? Uh..." Too much had happened in too short a span of time, Mo Ran's head was in complete disarray. He could only say dumbly, "Wh-what are you asking about that for?"
Chu Wanning said harshly: "Just say it!"
"...Wontons?"
Only then did Chu Wanning's expression relax slightly, but his brows were still furrowed as he spoke: "Mo Ran, listen closely, that Gouchen is an imposter, not the actual God of Weaponry. This person is adept at illusions, and knows Zhenlong Chess Formation, one of the three forbidden techniques. That's why I had to be careful, in case you were one of his illusions too."
Mo Ran was about to cry from indignation: "Why would I be tied up if I was an illusion!"
Chu Wanning: "...I'll get you out of there right away."
Nodding frantically, Mo Ran asked: "Oh yeah, Shizun, what about Shi Mei and Xue Meng?"
"Same as you, they also succumbed to the drugs in the wine, and got locked up elsewhere." Seeing Mo Ran's expression, Chu Wanning added, "No need to worry, they're fine now. It's just that there was no way to tell what kind of dangers laid in wait here, so I had them wait outside. You'll be able to see them once we get out of here."
As for Zhenlong Chess Formation, Chu Wanning did not explain further, nor did he need to.
It was one of the three powerful and notorious forbidden techniques of the cultivation world.
As the name implies, Zhenlong Chess Formation is a technique that uses others as chess pieces, to be maneuvered at will like in a game of chess. The user typically doesn't appear in person at the battlefield, but rather, lays down a chessboard and manipulates the chess pieces from the shadows, forcing everything from living people to the ghosts of the departed, from beasts on the land to birds in the skies to be at their every beck and call. A living creature under the control of Zhenlong Chess Formation is loyal to the user until death, and a dead creature will do their bidding until torn limb from limb.
However, what the user could control depended on their spiritual strength. Newly deceased people and beasts were the easiest to control, followed by those long dead, then live beasts, and finally, cultivated to the highest level, it allowed the user to control living people.
Very few people in the world were even capable of achieving this highest tier of Zhenlong Chess Formation, but when Mo Ran named himself emperor, he had already perfected the technique. That year, when he faced off against Chu Wanning in a deathmatch, he laid down a scroll a hundred feet long, a chessboard of splashed ink, an army of strewn pieces.
In that battle, hundreds of thousands of chess pieces touched down simultaneously, winged beasts blotted out the golden sun and dragons burst out of the raging seas. Mo Ran summoned endless beasts of both land and sky, and commanded an army of countless living people. A scene like that would be a rare sight even in hell.
This fox corpse was obviously something controlled by Zhenlong Chess Formation, with an additional layer of illusion magic alongside.
Rumor had it that the fur of the QingQiu fox clan's earliest ancestor was divided into forty-nine pieces of various sizes and made into magic artifacts. If one were to take someone's blood and drip it onto the fox fur, and then wrap that fur around something, anything at all, even a block of rotten wood would take on the appearance of that person's heart's desire.
The fur wrapped around this fox corpse was one such artifact. However, the magic only worked on the original owner of the blood; to anyone else, it looked as it always had.
It was a simple task to free Mo Ran. By the time Chu Wanning got him out of there, he had also more or less finished explaining everything to him.
What Mo Ran couldn't figure out was: "Shizun, how did you know that Gouchen was a fake?"